MONTPELLIER

A few days back our – unplanned, but therefor all the more fun – road trip brought us from the snow in Aime la Plagne to Montpellier, the seventh largest city of France. After visiting more and more cities in France I begin to think it’s not only Paris that has me swept off my feet (although that is without a doubt the biggest crush), but also its recurrent architecture that makes French cities so recognizable. Whenever I am in France I always have a hard time putting my camera away while taking a stroll through a city or village. The buildings, the little streets that make you curious what’s around the corner, the many historical landmarks – it all screams to be photographed.

That’s why I couldn’t help to compare Montpellier with Toulouse, a city that I have been visiting almost yearly from age thirteen until today (we used to spent the summer holidays in a village nearby). Though I’ve been there for what feels like a thousand times, it never gets old. The past years they have been working on making the city centre more pedestrian friendly – without making it a gigantic hassle to reach the most central parking by car, that is situated right underneath the ‘Place du Capitole’ (yes, I’m a big fan of parking my car right where I want to be) – which makes it even more enjoyable to walk around. It’s such an organized city, with a positive atmosphere and a variety of all the right people. One of the things I love about the population of a city is a mixture of the generation that lived there for decades – that represent the roots and bring certain sophistication - combined with the new generation of students that blow a fresh wind through the streets.

To get back to that comparison, that cocktail of old and young, wisdom and discovery, is what I kind of missed in Montpellier. That doesn’t mean you should skip this beautiful city – after all I just express my personal opinion – I encourage you to visit both, and go see for yourself. I’m even curious of what you think!